1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus having an editing function of editing a signal recorded on a recording medium by using another apparatus which is remotely controllable, and a method for use in such a reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Heretofore, a dubbing editing system has been known for dubbing a video signal recorded on a recording medium such as a video tape into another apparatus such as a video tape recorder while editing the video signal.
In such a dubbing editing system, a dubbing editing operation is performed as follows. For example, when a video signal recorded on a recording medium is to be edited, a part of the video signal recorded from one desired position to another desired position on the recording medium is decided to be one cut scene. Then, a plurality of cut scenes are beforehand registered as an editing program. According to the editing program registered beforehand, video signals for the plurality of cut scenes are searched and reproduced one after another, and are supplied to another apparatus such as a video tape recorder.
Further, in recent years, a system having such a structure as to control the operation of a receiving-side video tape recorder in the following manner has been developed. A sending-side video tape recorder contains therein a transmitting part of an infrared remote-control device. Among a plurality of kinds of control command codes stored in the infrared remote-control device, control command codes for controlling the operation corresponding to the manufacturer or type of the receiving-side video tape recorder are selected. According to the control command codes as selected, a cotrol command is sent from the transmitting part of the infrared remolte-control device to the receiving-side video tape recorder during the above-mentioned dubbing editing operation so as to control the operation of the receiving-side video tape recorder.
Meanwhile, there has been recently developed a recording-and-reproducing apparatus having such a function that, in order to allow only some specific users to see or hear specific images or sounds recorded on a recording medium, reproduction-restricting information is recorded in addition to a video or audio signal corresponding to the specific images or sounds in recording the video or audio signal on a recording medium, and, then, at the time of reproduction, the reproducing action is controlled according to the presence or absence of the reproduction-restricting information so as to cause the video or audio signal having the reproduction-restricting information added thereto not to be outputted.
However, when the above-mentioned dubbing editing operation is to be performed on a recording medium on which a video or audio signal has been recorded by the above recording-and-reproducing apparatus, the following problem arises. In registering the editing program, any area of the recording medium where the reproduction-restricting information has been added to the video or audio signal would be able to be registered as a cut scene selected for editing. Therefore, if, within the editing program as registered, there is any cut scene including an area of the recording medium area where the reproduction-restricting information has been added to the video or audio signal, the video and audio signal having the reproduction-restricting information added thereto would not be outputted from a sending-side reproducing apparatus. As a result, another recording medium which is used for the dubbing editing operation for dubbing a video or audio signal into a receiving-side recording apparatus comes eventually to have a period in which no video or audio signal is recorded.
Further, in order to prevent such a period of having no record of video or audio signal in the result of the dubbing editing operation, it is necessary for the user of the dubbing editing system to pay attention to performing the following action. In registering the editing program, the user has to exclude the area of a recording medium where a video or audio signal having the reproduction-restricting information added thereto has been recorded, from a cut scene for editing. Otherwise, if the area of a recording medium where a video or audio signal having the reproduction-restricting information added thereto has been recorded has inadvertently been registered as a cut scene for editing, the user has to delete a program of the cut scene from the editing program as registered. Accordingly, the operation of registering an editing program is caused to be extremely troublesome by the presence of the reproduction-restricting information.
Further, in registering the editing program in the above dubbing editing system, in a case where position information on positions on a recording medium which is being subjected to the editing operation (i.e., time codes recorded together with a video or audio signal if the recording medium is a magnetic tape) is expected to be reproduced along with the video or audio signal from the recording medium, the position information reproduced from the recording medium is made to be registered as an editing start point or an editing end point.
In the above dubbing editing system, when registering an editing program, the user reproduces a video or audio signal recorded on the recording medium and registers the editing program by using the position information reproduced from the recording medium together with the video or audio signal while reviewing the contents of the reproduced video or audio signal. However, in a case where, to allow the contents of the video or audio signal recorded on the recording medium to be reviewed, the recording medium is subjected to a high-speed searching reproduction in which the transport speed of the recording medium is higher than that for a normal reproduction, if the position information to be reproduced from the recording medium together with the video or audio signal is reproduced only in an intermittent manner or if the position information to be reproduced from the recording medium together with the video or audio signal is caused to drop out by some reason, position information which has not been reproduced from the recording medium is interpolated by using, for example, the position information as reproduced immediately before. Therefore, the interpolated position information is not in proper correspondence to the actual recorded position on the recording medium of the reproduced video or audio signal. For example, if an editing program is registered in accordance with the interpolated position information, the editing operation cannot be carried out as desired, because the editing start point or editing end point as registered is not correctly in correspondence to the actual recorded position on the recording medium.
It is a general object of the invention to provide an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus capable of solving the above-mentioned problems.
It is a more specific object of the invention to provide an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus capable of allowing the user to easily register an editing program without paying attention to excluding, from a cut scene for editing, any area of a recording medium where a video or audio signal having reproduction-restricting information added thereto has been recorded, and capable of carrying out a dubbing editing operation such that, even if the dubbing editing operation is performed according to the registered editing program, no period where no video or audio signal is recorded as the result of the dubbing editing operation is formed.
To attain the above objects, in accordance with an aspect of the invention, there is provided an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus having an editing function of editing a signal recorded on a recording medium by using another apparatus which is remotely controllable, which comprises (A) reproducing means for searching for a desired main information signal from the recording medium, reproducing the searched-for main information signal from the recording medium and outputting the reproduced main information signal to the other apparatus, the recording medium having formed therein a main information signal recording area in which the main information signal is recorded and a management information signal recording area in which a management information signal related to the main information signal is recorded, the main information signal recorded in the main information signal recording area including at least one kind of main information signal, and the management information signal recorded in the management information signal recording area including information on restriction of reproduction of the main information signal recorded in the main information signal recording area, and (B) control means for (i) controlling a searching and reproducing operation of the reproducing means such that at least one editing program in which one program is formed by designating an editing start point and an editing end point on the recording medium is registrable and the main information signal and the management information signal recorded on the recording medium are searched for and reproduced according to the editing program registered, (ii) controlling an outputting operation of the reproducing means for outputting the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium to the other apparatus according to the information on restriction of reproduction of the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium, and (iii) controlling the other apparatus to perform an editing recording operation according to the registered editing program and the information on restriction of reproduction of the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus capable of allowing the user to, easily without paying attention in registering an editing program, register editing points of the editing program in accordance with position information which has proper correspondence to the actual positions on a recording medium.
To attain the above object, in accordance with another aspect of the invention, there is provided an editing-function-integrated reproducing apparatus having an editing function of editing a signal recorded on a recording medium by using another apparatus which is remotely controllable, which comprises (A) reproducing means for searching for a desired main information signal from the recording medium, reproducing the searched-for main information signal from the recording medium and outputting the reproduced main information signal to the other apparatus, the recording medium having formed therein a main information signal recording area in which the main information signal is recorded and a management information signal recording area in which a management information signal related to the main information signal is recorded, the main information signal recorded in the main information signal recording area including at least one kind of main information signal, and the management information signal recorded in the management information signal recording area including information on recording-position of the main information signal recorded in the main information signal recording area, and (B) control means for (i) controlling a searching and reproducing operation of the reproducing means such that at least one editing program in which one program is formed by designating an editing start point and an editing end point on the recording medium is registrable and the main information signal and the management information signal recorded on the recording medium are searched for and reproduced according to the editing program registered, (ii) controlling an outputting operation of the reproducing means for outputting the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium to the other apparatus according to the information on recording-position of the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium, and (iii) controlling the other apparatus to perform an editing recording operation according to the registered editing program and the information on recording-position of the main information signal reproduced from the recording medium, the control means allowing the editing program to be registered according to the information on recording-position of the main information signal included in the management information signal searched for from the recording medium at a predetermined searching speed.
These and other objects and features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.